-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Mason
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 1:31 PM
To: Texas-Paule@t-online.de
Subject: Re: Galloping towards Lower Slobbovia
Paul, surprisingly, we have a classical music station here in Ruidoso [NM].
It is a
translator for an Albuquerque/Santa Fe for-profit operation. They seem to
be
making money, having been on for years. The commercials seem to respond to
some
kind of internal rules; i.e., they are none of them obnoxious. There are
still
wonders left in this world! Ben
Paul Moor wrote:
> April 17, 2002
>
> CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
> Lamenting the Fade-Out of Classical Radio
>
> By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
>
> Last month, WNYC-FM (93.9) announced that it was cutting five hours each
> weekday from its classical music programming, turning itself over more to
> news and talk, like its AM counterpart, WNYC-AM (820). Then on Friday, The
> Washington Post reported that National Public Radio was gutting
"Performance
> Today," its classical music show.
>
> Public service is the explanation. People just aren't listening to
classical
> music anymore, at least not during the day. They want talk. WNYC says only
> 13 percent of its audience of one million weekly listeners tuned in for
> music. Before Sept. 11, when WNYC's antenna at the World Trade Center was
> still operating and it was broadcasting its regular lineup, most listeners
> switched the dial when the program changed from "Morning Edition," the
> popular NPR news show, to classical music.
>
> The downfall of classical music on the radio is nothing new. Privately
owned
> classical music stations across the country have been disappearing for so
> many years, replaced by more profitable pop programming, that it is
> surprising there are any left.
>
> A private company is out to make a buck. But with nonprofit public radio
> stations like WNYC, the obligations are different and more complicated.
Does
> public service mean providing the public with more of what more people
like,
> or with what serves the public good? What is the public good anyway? Who
> decides?
>
> Corporations are the model emulated by more and more nonprofits. Their
goals
> include younger demographics and quarterly growth, partly to impress
> underwriters who receive promotional spots on the air in return for
> contributions, which is what paid advertisements for butter substitutes
and
> automobiles are now called by public radio and television executives.
> Increasingly at WNYC, the budget has ballooned along with executive
> salaries. Money increasingly comes from the underwriters.
>
> These changes have dovetailed with the station's independence drive: New
> York City owned WNYC and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani wanted to sell it in
the
> mid-1990's. An FM station with 50,000 watts of broadcasting power is worth
a
> lot of money. So WNYC contrived to buy its independence. Donors to the
> campaign included listeners who hoped to save what they knew, a classical
> music station, although classical listeners, the station discovered, did
not
> turn out to be particularly generous or loyal.
>
> For a while, WNYC executives hoped to acquire WNYE-FM (91.5), the New York
> City Board of Education station, which has a much weaker signal than
> WNYC-FM. WNYE broadcasts shows that serve various ethnic groups in the
city.
> WNYC wanted to move classical music there, but the Board of Education
> rejected the idea.
>
> Much (not all) of the new talk radio is fine. I'm not suggesting that WNYC
> executives are philistines. Daytime classical music has been replaced by
"On
> the Line" with Brian Lehrer and "New York & Company" with Leonard Lopate,
> smart programs. New shows have been developed or picked up, like "On the
> Media" and "Studio 360," the best new program on radio, a breezily
> substantive magazine-style interview and features show — but these
hourlong
> shows are not the ones cutting into classical programming.
>
> The big problem is that music has been progressively dumbed down over the
> years, and not just at WNYC. Talk about music has replaced music itself,
or
> the music is guitar sonatas and easy-listening favorites, background noise
> that drives away serious devotees. The public can judge quality. If you
> cheapen a product enough, eventually no one will want it. It is no
surprise
> people have stopped tuning in.
>
> Anyway, the number of listeners didn't use to be the criterion for public
> radio's commitment to classical music. I'm nostalgic. There's a place on
> radio for intelligent discussion — goodness knows, there's too little of
> it — but classical music is public radio's birthright in New York and
> shouldn't be easy to abandon. Every community in the country, not just New
> York, deserves a station seriously dedicated to serious music, because
that
> music is partly how we have defined what we want to share and preserve as
a
> culture. The job of providing this service ultimately falls to public
radio
> because few commercial stations are willing to do it.
>
> People can buy recordings. But listening to music on the radio has always
> been about serendipity: hearing what you don't know or didn't think you
> would like. That's how many adults learned to appreciate classical music.
>
> When I was a boy in the early and mid-1970's, when New York still had
> several full-time FM classical stations, WNCN, now defunct, broadcast an
> hourlong show at 11 a.m. on weekdays called "A Musical Offering." It was
> hosted by David Dubal and featured comparative performances of piano
music.
>
> For a while Mr. Dubal presented different interpretations of Chopin.
Another
> time it was Liszt, then Bach, then the Beethoven sonatas, one by one,
> movement by movement.
>
> WNCN made way in 1974 for what turned out to be the short-lived craze for
> quadraphonic rock. "Roll Over Beethoven" introduced the new station, WQIV.
> That wasn't the end of the story, however. The Federal Communications
> Commission was a strong regulatory agency then. Disgruntled WNCN listeners
> complained and the F.C.C. forced the station back to a classical music
> format, saying it had a responsibility to serve the public interest. The
> airwaves are in the public domain, after all, and private profit is not
the
> only reason licenses are awarded for stations. So WNCN was sold to the GAF
> Corporation, whose president, a lover of classical music, stuck with a
> classical format for a while.
>
> Eventually the station died a second death. Profits are profits.
>
> I'm glad to see Mr. Dubal is back with a similar program, one evening a
week
> on WQXR-FM (96.3), the classical music station owned by The New York Times
> Company. But "A Musical Offering," broadcast during the day, helped teach
me
> to play the piano when I was not yet an adult who tuned in to radio at
> night. Before a broadcast was to start, during the summer or when I was
home
> from school in the morning, I would carry the relevant stack of music into
> the living room where our new Pioneer stereo was installed, adjust the
knob
> to 104.3 FM, and settle onto the couch to catch the late-morning light
that
> poured in through windows above Sixth Avenue.
>
> I listened intently (not least because the truck traffic always threatened
> to drown out the music) and the experience introduced me to music I didn't
> know, to pianists whose recordings I hadn't heard, and to discriminating
> generally. I grew up by listening to radio shows like that.
>
> Those shows are disappearing. I wonder if the executives entrusted with
> public radio's future know how to quantify that sort of loss.
>
> Copyright 2002 The New York Times
>
> Paul Moor (Berlin)
> <Texas-Paule@Sigmund-Freud.Org>
> Telefon: (030) 8639-5784
> Telefax: (030) 8639-5785
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